Why Bosnia and Herzegovina is abbreviated BIH

Bosnia and Herzegovina is back at the World Cup.

Not only that, but the country abbreviated at BIH is on the scoresheet first. They scored about 20 minutes into their opening match on Friday against Canada in Toronto as they try to make noise in the 2026 edition of FIFA’s showcase event.

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Some fans wonder about the name of the country — simply put, the borders of this nation include two traditional geographic areas: Bosnia, and Herzegovina.

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Others simply wonder about the abbreviation.

On scoreboards around the world, they’re listed as BIH.

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Why is Bosnia and Herzegovina abbreviated BIH?

In reality, the ‘I’ in this is actually a lowercase ‘i.’ The real abbreviation is BiH.

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The word ‘i’ means «and» in the local languages — Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

So the BiH abbreviation is simply the three words in their language, Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Bosnia i Herzegovina.

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It’s that simple.

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